HETEROTOPICAL TERRITORIES at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles in Paris

The Wallonia-Brussels Centre in Paris presents the TERRITOIRES HETEROTOPIQUES (Diversified Territories) from 14 October to 16 November 2024 exhibition

This exhibition, curated by Caterina Zevola & Gregory Lang, invites nine artists to create in-situ environments, produce architectural gestures and take over several of the Centre's spaces, some of them unconventional exhibition spaces such as galleries, theatres, cinemas and outdoor courtyards.

Based on the theme of spatial deconstruction, the exhibition reveals and identifies potential spaces in the architecture of the WBC site. Its speculative approach is distinguished by its ability to explore and generate forward-looking ideas, scenarios and concepts, based on the practices of active creators. But above all, it offers a quality of honed visions of space, leading to poetic choices and generating new experiences to be lived and shared.

The exhibition will be an opportunity to discover how, through such means as misappropriation, borrowing, pretence, oneirism and the imaginary, the artists on show create heterotopias, new speculative mental landscapes, and explore alternative narratives of the world.

Among the nine guests were two WBF architectural firms.

The BENTO collective challenges conventional wisdom on construction and sustainability, using organic and living elements that evolve, thus questioning our relationship with habitat and the living. They offer an immersive wet zone that is accessible to the public inside a black box. This universe is made up of light, living matter, notably tiles of mycelium - the vegetative part of the fungus - which diffuse a reddish light between their lamellae, and water in differing forms, including gaseous, reinforcing the vaporous, liquid perception of the atmospheric space articulated around a central living element: a water-filled trough on the ground, teeming with plants, topped by a large mycelium lamp. This installation transforms a neutral black box into a unique place of perception, somewhere between a laboratory and a greenhouse. It offers a sensory, visual, olfactory and tactile experience where the public can wander, playing with their perception of space and living things.

The Traumnovelle collective's dramatic device turns the traditional logic of theatrical space on its head, creating a grotto in the space usually reserved for spectators. This inverted space invites us to stand on the stage, offering a new perspective from which to contemplate the depth of a new landscape signified in successive layers. It is anticipatory archaeology, telling the story of a possible future, exploring the history of the underground in its various forms: quarry, ossuary, mushroom farm, precarious shelter, place of smuggling and resistance, raves and concerts. This multi-dimensional narrative allows us to imagine the many different lives these underground spaces may have had or could have. The lighting creates a contemplative space and atmosphere, leading visitors to a state of quietude and introspection. This scenic installation not only reverses the roles between stage and spectator, but also offers an immersive experience of the potential of subterranean worlds.